Franz Bardon was born on December 1, 1909, in Katherein, near Opava in the present-day Czech Republic. He died on July 10, 1958, in Brno, also in the Czech Republic. He attended public school in Opava, and after that apprenticed as a mechanic. His stage name was "Frabato," which is an abbreviation of Franz-Bardon-Troppau-Opava.

The special nature of this work required serious consideration before I published it under the name of Franz Bardon; the importance of the subject matter finally decided the issue. To pay tribute to truth, I should not like to conceal from the reader the fact that, in actuality, Franz Bardon supplied only the framework of facts for this book. Being pressed for time, he left its entire completion and embellishment to his secretary, Otti Votavova. Unfortunately, Bardon's posthumous manuscript was not ready for print, and therefore I had to revise it.

I would like to pass on some of the information which, according to Otti Votavova, she received directly from Franz Bardon. According to her, Adolf Hitler was a member of a 99 Lodge. Besides this, Hitler and some of his confidants were members of the Thule Order, which was simply the external instrument of a group of powerful Tibetan black magicians which used the members of the Thule Order for their own purposes. Hitler also employed a number of doubles on various occasions as camouflage.

Franz Bardon was brought to the Nazis' attention through the negligence of his student and friend, Wilhelm Quintscher (Rah Omir Quintscher). Quintscher had not destroyed his correspondence with Bardon, although he had been asked by Bardon to do so; that is how the National Socialists became aware of him.

While they were being flogged, Quintscher lost his self-control. He uttered a Kabbalistic formula, whereupon the torturers were immediately paralyzed completely. When he later neutralized the effect of the formula, he was shot in revenge.

Franz Bardon was offered high positions in the Third Reich by Adolf Hitler, but only in exchange for his help in winning the war with his magical abilities. Furthermore, Franz Bardon was expected to reveal to Hitler the location of the other ninety-eight lodges throughout the world. When he refused to help, he was exposed to the cruelest torture. Among other things, they performed operations on him without anesthetizing him. They forged iron rings around his ankles and fixed heavy iron balls to them.

Franz Bardon shared the fate of his fellow prisoners in Nazi concentration camps for three and a half years. In 1945, shortly before the war ended, he was sentenced to death. However, before the sentence could be carried out the prison in which he was being held was bombed. He was rescued from the heavily damaged building by some Russian fellow prisoners and succeeded in hiding from the police in his native country until the end of the war. He then worked his way back to his home town.

After the war, Franz Bardon used his magical abilities to determine that Adolf Hitler had escaped abroad, and that he had undergone a number of surgical operations on his face so as not to be recognized.

The photographs of Hermes Trismegistos, Lao-tse, Mahum Tah-Ta and Shambalah presented in this volume were originally published in the book Das Buck vom Buddha das Westens, by Hans Albert Muller (Verlag des Ordens der Weltvollendung, 1930). This fact became known to me only recently; the photos were first painted by a mediumistic artist from the magic mirror of Franz Bardon.

This is the end of Otti Votavova's recital of facts. In the many years of my acquaintance with her I was able to convince myself of her love of truth. In his book The Practice of Magical Evocation, Franz Bardon has written in some detail concerning the fact that certain disadvantages must always be taken into account when any kind of pact is made. Anyone who has thoroughly studied the occult sciences will not find it difficult to judge lodges, orders, sects and groups. One should always be on one's utmost guard wherever money or oaths are demanded in exchange for spiritual instruction, and wherever the secrets are kept by the higher degrees and concealed from the lower ones.

Evidence regarding the events related in this book will be reserved for people trained and developed in magic. Humankind will have to resign itself to the fact that a great deal of evidence concerning the workings of our cosmos can only be furnished through spiritual means.